Useless real-life anecdote:
When I was just a tyke, 8 or 9 or so, my mother told me how to slash my wrists. "Down, not across", she told me. I am not making this up.
Mom: "If you cut across, it doesn't work. you bleed a lot slower, and it's a lot more painful. You're supposed to ALONG the wrist, so you cut open all these veins."
Me: "But.. Mom.. how do you know that?"
Mom: "Well.. I tried to kill myself a couple of times when I was a teenager..."
Observations:
1. Although I, as a child, was told how to go about slashing my wrists in an effective, painless (or less painful) manner, I'm still alive now.
2. Had my mother known how to slash her wrists in this way, she probably would have died, and I would not be here.
The moral implications of this make my brain hurt.